Prom 16: Cassandra Miller / Shostakovich, BBC Philharmonic, Power / Storgårds

[bluestateprommer]

Wednesday 31 July 2024
19:30
Royal Albert Hall

Cassandra Miller: I cannot love without trembling (Viola Concerto) (BBC co-commission)

Interval

Shostakovich: Symphony No. 4 in C, op. 43

Lawrence Power, viola
BBC Philharmonic
John Storgårds, conductor

https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/ez5wxj

https://www.royalalberthall.com/tickets/proms/bbc-proms-24/prom-16/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0021bpm

[smittims]

Does anyone know when, if ever, this Prom is to be repeated in 'Classical Live'? I've been searching but so far without success. The afternoon repeats are the best time for me to hear a Prom.

[bluestateprommer]

Does anyone know when, if ever, this Prom is to be repeated in 'Classical Live'? I've been searching but so far without success. The afternoon repeats are the best time for me to hear a Prom.

From looking at the advance 'Classical Live' list, this Prom is not scheduled for a repeat airing there. So your search was accurate.

I vaguely recall hearing CM's work before, perhaps on another BBC R3 relay, but I can't remember exactly (although it is on YT). All that aside, from hearing this (again?), I got more of a sense that this work is rather Giya Kancheli-esque, or sort of "Kancheli meets Gubaidulina", if that makes sense. Like last night's BBC Philharmonic concert, the meditative and mostly quiet tone of the work in the first half will make quite a contrast with the much louder selection after the interval.

[edashtav]

From looking at the advance 'Classical Live' list, this Prom is not scheduled for a repeat airing there. So your search was accurate.

I vaguely recall hearing CM's work before, perhaps on another BBC R3 relay, but I can't remember exactly (although it is on YT). All that aside, from hearing this (again?), I got more of a sense that this work is rather Giya Kancheli-esque, or sort of "Kancheli meets Gubaidulina", if that makes sense. Like last night's BBC Philharmonic concert, the meditative and mostly quiet tone of the work in the first half will make quite a contrast with the much louder selection after the interval.

I wrote this BEFORE reading bsp's parallel perceptions.

I cannot love without trembling is a Canadian Viola Concerto written about two years ago by Cassandra Miller has its genesis in the writings of Simone Weil, and sad Greek songs played by a Greek violinist. 'Lament and Grieve together' might represent this work's slogan.

Miller's work is in 5 sections. Strumming strings connect lament fragments from the soloist. The mood is mysterious meditation with slithering glissandi.

A repeated note introduces a new section centred around throbbing, birdsong, and a sinuous group melody on the viola. The section's coda is monotonal and almost monotonous.

The viola creates more activity and darkly intense slowly evolving brass music.

A pulse of quiet string chords leads to a changed scene dominated by a vibrato enriched figure on the viola against a slow pizzicato ticking background.

Just occasionally my mind wandered to one of Kancheli's viola-centric pieces,possibly Abii Ne Viderem : I turned away so as not to see. I suspect it was Cassandra' abiding bad news.

A piccolo tries to tweet some glad tidings which the viola adopts, or rather distorts and adds to the skein.

I'm not an aficionado of mood music. This piece defines a lonely world and sustains it for 25 minutes. So, it's unenthusiastic respect from me.

[edashtav]

.
I was looking forward to this event- DSCH'S grandiloquent 4th symphony is a 'pièce d'occasion' suiting the BBC Proms. The last time I heard the work live was at that year's Proms in the Albert Hall - I think the conductor was the late Mariss Jansons.

This year, I heard tonight's performers on R.3 giving a revelatory interpretation of Shostakovich's 3rd Symphony.

So much for the set-up , what of the reality? Clearly John Storgårds knows and loves Shostakovich, warts and all.
While at the micro level DSCH'S 4TH has form pan out and it's an all-encompassing sprawl, the overall form is as organic as DUCHY ORIGINALS. I suppose that sonata form was as dead as a dodecaphonic Dodo in Revolutionary Russia.
It's coarse grained Soviet Poster art. Not as banal as the Leningrad Symphony, it's just as loud- did Gustav Mahler ever direct a fanfare of trumpets to play fffff ?

The performance was brilliant and that's a real compliment because the Albert Hall in a heatwave is truly as sweaty as The Prince Consort's bathroom- where ate the Fountains of Rome when Respighi has stopped pining for them?

The finest performance for me of this emerging Proms season. The symphony's red star was the BBC PO's 1st bassoon.

[Petrushka]

Praise is also due to the engineers providing the Radio 3 relay. This was virtually CD quality sound with an impressive bass response, especially from the double basses. I have to whack up the volume for radio as opposed to CD, and did so here, but once the right setting was found it was really very, very good.

Terrific performance too!

(Just how does the cymbal player get that crash during the hectic string passage in the first movement to time just right? Do they have to count like mad and hope for the best?)

[EnemyoftheStoat]

Praise is also due to the engineers providing the Radio 3 relay. This was virtually CD quality sound with an impressive bass response, especially from the double basses. I have to whack up the volume for radio as opposed to CD, and did so here, but once the right setting was found it was really very, very good.

Terrific performance too!

(Just how does the cymbal player get that crash during the hectic string passage in the first movement to time just right? Do they have to count like mad and hope for the best?)

The percussion parts will no doubt have cues to help the player navigate, but I'd hazard that that passage is much easier to count than the mad waltz in the third movement.

Counting like mad will also be involved, and rehearsing it a bit probably helps...

Agreed - terrific performance, even though in the hall much of the detail is lost.

[smittims]

It's odd that no repeat broadcast is scheduled. I would have thought Radio3 would want to make the most of a BBC Phil Shostakovitch 4. Maybe it will turn up later on .

[Darkbloom]

It's odd that no repeat broadcast is scheduled. I would have thought Radio3 would want to make the most of a BBC Phil Shostakovitch 4. Maybe it will turn up later on .

Surely that doesn't really matter these days? They're all on iPlayer and people can listen whenever they want. I'm sure they get more people listening via the app than tune in to a repeat broadcast.

[Pulcinella]

...

Miller's work is in 5 sections. Strumming strings connect lament fragments from the soloist. The mood is mysterious meditation with slithering glissandi.

...

It was that aspect that struck me most: rather Scottish in feel, I thought.

[smittims]

I understand what you're saying, Darkbloom, but the BBC is supposed to be a broadcasting organisation not an internet organisation,and they do clearly believe in the value of repeat broadcasts as they do so many.

Many people don't use the internet. In my own case I borrow someone's laptop and though it has a headphone socket, it's stopped working satisfactorily at present so I've been relying on rhe afternoon repeats as I'm usually in bed in the evenings.

Nevertheless I've managed to hear the Miller concerto. I imagine it tried many people's patience beyond the limit, (not to mention the orchestra,as it wasn't reallly a concerto was it? but a long lament with orchestral backing,) and it would be easy to dismiss : far too long for its meagre musical material , backward in idiom, lacking in variety, etc. But I could appreciate what the composer was trying to do. Like a lot of 'new ' works it seems to address the problem of how to write new tonal music, which isn't just pastiche, after the twentieth century. And the many quarter tones seemed an attempt to provide a musical equivalent of 'reading between the lines'.

I do wonder though whether the composer thought about how it would sound to an audience. It was a bit like a speech which the speaker has written , revised and rehearsed and knows thoroughly, but forgets that the aiudiensce haven't heard any of it and may know nothing of the subject . Like a lot of new music it seemed written to a theory , wothout considering how it would sound in practice. At least, that was my impression

[HighlandDougie]

It was that aspect that struck me most: rather Scottish in feel, I thought.

Aye, that's us Jocks to the life. Miserable moaners, always lamenting how life has dealt us an unfair hand .... Seriously, though, I rather agree. I heard it last year so was pleased to see that Lawrence P had been signed up for the Proms, ensuring that it should be heard by a wider audience.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Praise is also due to the engineers providing the Radio 3 relay. This was virtually CD quality sound with an impressive bass response, especially from the double basses. I have to whack up the volume for radio as opposed to CD, and did so here, but once the right setting was found it was really very, very good.

Terrific performance too!

(Just how does the cymbal player get that crash during the hectic string passage in the first movement to time just right? Do they have to count like mad and hope for the best?)

From my very limited cymbal experience in an amateur orchestra getting the clash in the right place is the easier bit - either bar counting or counting from an identifiable cue e.g a horn flourish if they are near or just memorising where it comes (risky). Much trickier is getting the loudness of the clash right and avoiding “splatting.”
If you ever come across it there’s a very funny article by the Sunday Times journalist Nick Tomalin about his time in an army band playing the cymbals . Surprisingly tricky as you had to March as well , have no score and there’s a sound lag between you and the front of the band.

[Petrushka]

From my very limited cymbal experience in an amateur orchestra getting the clash in the right place is the easier bit - either bar counting or counting from an identifiable cue e.g a horn flourish if they are near or just memorising where it comes (risky). Much trickier is getting the loudness of the clash right and avoiding “splatting.”
If you ever come across it there’s a very funny article by the Sunday Times journalist Nick Tomalin about his time in an army band playing the cymbals . Surprisingly tricky as you had to March as well , have no score and there’s a sound lag between you and the front of the band.

I don't have a score to hand and my ability in reading one is fairly limited but whenever I listen to the DSCH 4, live or recorded, I try to get that cymbal clash in the right place in my head and nearly always fail. I got to know the work from the Philadelphia/Ormandy recording which I bought in 1976 so I've had plenty of 'practice'.

When I saw Rattle and the LSO perform it last February, he gave a perfect cue to the player who struck the cymbal which was suspended. It must be a nightmare for both conductor and percussionist to get it spot on because the strings are going hell for leather and it sounds like there's little to get a handle on as a memory aid.

[gurnemanz]

Surely that doesn't really matter these days? They're all on iPlayer and people can listen whenever they want. I'm sure they get more people listening via the app than tune in to a repeat broadcast.

Quite. Just listened to last night's Prom. Well worth it and a good interval talk with Tom McKinney chatting to Rosamund Bartlett.

In my case, the simplest way to listen again is to go via the Sounds app on my TV which thence feeds through an optical cable to my amp and speakers. The resulting sound is excellent - at least as good if not better than broadcast DAB.